page_title: StG 44
section_title: Late prototypes
hierarchical_section_title: StG 44 / History / Late prototypes
caption_attribution_description: English: The Gerät 06(H) prototype.
context_page_description: The StG 44 is a German selective-fire assault rifle developed during World War II. It is also known as the MP 43 and MP 44.
  The StG 44 was the first successful assault rifle, with features including a relatively short cartridge, controllable automatic fire, a more compact design than a battle rifle with a quicker rate of fire, and intended for hitting targets within a few hundred metres.
  The StG 44 fulfilled its role effectively, particularly on the Eastern Front, offering a greatly increased volume of fire compared to standard infantry rifles. It came too late to have much effect on the war, but did influence the Soviet AK-47 that was introduced three years after the war concluded. Its influence can still be seen in modern assault rifles.
context_section_description: In a somewhat unrelated development, Mauser continued design work on a series of experimental weapons in an effort to produce an acceptable service-wide rifle for the short cartridge system. One of these prototypes, a product of the engineers at the Light Weapon Development Group (Abteilung 37) at Oberndorf, was the MKb Gerät 06 (Maschinenkarabiner Gerät 06 or "machine carbine device 06") first appearing in 1942. This gun used a unique gas piston-delayed roller-locked action derived from the short recoil operation of the MG 42 machine gun but with a fixed barrel and gas system. It was realized that with careful attention to the mechanical ratios, the gas system could be omitted. The resultant weapon, the Gerät 06(H), was supposedly slated for adoption by the Wehrmacht as the StG 45(M). The operating principle lived on in postwar designs from CEAM/AME, CETME, and most famously, Heckler & Koch.
  Towards the end of the war, there were last-ditch efforts to develop cheap so-called Volksgewehr rifles in the 7.92×33mm caliber. One of these, the VG 1-5 (Volkssturmgewehr 1-5), used a gas-delayed blowback action based on the Barnitzke system, whereby gas bled from the barrel near the chamber created resistance to the rearward impulse of the operating parts, which ceases when the projectile leaves the muzzle, allowing the operating parts to be forced rearward by the residual pressure of the cartridge case. This principle has been used most successfully in the P7 pistol.
caption: The Gerät 06 ("device 06") prototype. An attempt to further simplify the MP 43/44 and StG 44 series of weapons. The pictured example is incomplete; it was captured in 1945 and evaluated at Aberdeen Proving Ground after the war.
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